This was the let down of the four polishes, because it was very streaky and milky on the nail. The first coat was extremely streaky, but a second, even thicker coat did not hide the streaking entirely. It had a thick consistency, so it made getting thinner coats difficult to do and had a tendency to pool along the edges. I had to be really careful to keep my nails level so that the polish didn’t bulge on the edges. It was mostly opaque after two coats. I typically get a week of wear with MAC’s polish formula with minor tip wear but no chipping.

It had beautiful pigmentation when I swatched it initially, and on the lid, it was still good, but due to the very matte, slightly powdery texture, it tended to stick and absorb (like a blotting powder might). For that reason, the texture does better over a primer. Without a primer, it tends to look noticeably faded (and slightly darkened) after six hours. I didn’t experience any creasing, even after eight hours of wear, though.

For reference, it also appears in Benefit’s Easiest Nudes Ever Palette–I make a point to mention that, because the palette itself is $30 but contains three other eyeshadows along with two Creaseless Cream Eyeshadows; more or less, unless you really hate the other products, it’s hard to justify $20 for one eyeshadow when you could be paying $30 and receiving six different products.

Illamasqua Shoot Intense Lipgloss (£14.00 for 0.20 fl. oz.) is described as a “leaf green.” It’s a brightened, medium grass green with warm, yellowy undertones and a creamy finish. It will surprise absolutely no one that I don’t have a laundry list of dupes for this shade. That, in fact, I have none to recommend to you. OCC’s Chlorophyll is much more of a teal shade. (And their newer Power Plant shade is more teal as well.)

Shoot is a high-maintenance color, because it’s in gloss form, it has a lot of slip and will move around a lot. I found this particularly problematic in maintaining and achieving opaque color throughout. It just looked uneven more often than not. To get really opaque color, you have to apply a fair amount of product, but with that much on, it is somewhat uncomfortable–just has a thick, heavy kind of feel. Luckily, it is non-sticky, so it doesn’t feel gummy, even with more product applied. I tried applying it from the tube with its brush-type applicator as well as with a separate lip brush. The results seen in photos are used with a separate lip brush, which gave me the best results but not great results. It lasts well for four hours, and there is still a noticeable green tinge to my lips for another hour or so after. It had a sweet, fruity scent. I’m still noticing that every tube I’ve received of Illamasqua’s Intense Lipgloss with the brush applicator has had significantly splayed bristles.

The Creme Smooth Lip Color formula is supposed to have “medium to full coverage with a semi-lustrous finish,” wear for six to eight hours, glide without skipping, and hydrate lips while it’s being worn. Now, that’s a rather tall order! Arabesque didn’t nail all of those on the head, unfortunately, though I still remain hopeful on other shades, because most of its problems are ones I see often in lighter, creamier shades like this one.

The texture is medium in weight and very creamy; it definitely glides on and doesn’t drag across the lips. It deposits mostly even color coverage, but the lighter shade made lines of lip color show up if you pressed your lips together. The color settled a bit after initial application, and as it wore away, more seemed to gather there. It wore for four hours, which is average for lipsticks on me in general, and slightly above average for colors like this. The color coverage was mostly opaque, though, and it did have a noticeable sheen to its finish, and this is where the lipstick did the best. It was lightly hydrating while I wore it. Bonus: it is one of the larger high-end lipsticks on the market.

Of all the shades, this was my least favorite. It was the least pigmented, as there was definite translucency to the overall color (it looked like an intense lip stain), but the color settled and migrated into lip lines within two hours of wear. Then, the settling continued to worsen for the next three hours of wear. It lasted with some color for as long as five hours, and then there was residual staining that remained for at least another hour. The settling was really noticeable and looked crumbly between the lines (so if you smiled). The consistency felt like the other pencils–soft, lightly creamy–and it didn’t tug or pull on the lips. It was neither drying nor hydrating while I wore it.

This is the final shade I tried out in the formula, and it fell in the middle of the spectrum; not the worst, not the best. I’m still surprised that Estee Lauder didn’t put out a better formula, because the brand has better lipsticks in their house, not to mention the numerous lipstick formulas across other brands under the Estee Lauder umbrella. Rock Candy has excellent pigmentation–full, opaque color coverage–but the consistency is a bit dry and not creamy enough, so it does tug on the lips when you apply it. The other issue I had was that it is drying. It wasn’t the most drying lipstick I’ve tried, but it was more than just a little drying after wearing it for six full hours.